Sarah Palin Tells Hannity She Would Vote for Newt In S.C.

On Tuesday night, Sarah Palin did not endorse a candidate when she visited with Sean Hannity via satellite, but she did say who she would vote for if she were a South Carolinian. She made her reasoning clear and unambiguous, and it really very simple: Vote for Newt because this process should not be seen as ended quite yet. We still have much to learn about these candidates if we’re to avoid a September or October surprise, and Mitt Romney should not be seen as inevitable. Here’s the video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFx47DOd0xQ]

What should be plain to anybody who listens clearly to what Governor Palin is saying is that she thinks, and I thoroughly agree, that nobody should conclude that this party primary is over. We’d still like to see more facts on the table, and as I have now extensively covered, we should not give our votes to anybody who will not permit their tax returns to be released prior to any more primaries. Let’s face it: Mitt Romney could clear all that up if there’s nothing to hide, and as Tucker Carlson of The Daily Caller pointed out in a later segment on Hannity’s show, there’s really no reason for Romney to withhold it any longer. He’s already said he would release it in April, but why hold off unless there’s something he’s trying to hide from Republican primary voters?

It’s clearly part of Romney’s calculations that he’ll have the nomination wrapped up by then, and this is his way of holding off any bad news or potential blow-back from the disclosure of his tax returns until it no longer matters in the matter of his nomination. It’s time we call Mitt to account, and it seems that in the mean time, Sarah Palin is all in with South Carolinians and Floridians holding this contest in stasis until we can get some more details out of all of these candidates, and in my own view, particularly Romney. She’s right: These people need a close examination, and of all of them, only Romney has managed to avoid most serious scrutiny until late, and even at that, the media is largely carrying his water.

If Newt climbs to a victory in South Carolina, and the final votes in Iowa show Santorum as the winner (the last total I saw had Santorum ahead by 80 votes), then Romney has only won one state — a state next to the one he governed. That should end all this "inevitable" talk.